Saturday, October 31, 2009

 

More Stimulus Arithmetic

In preparation for an op ed, I spent a half hour Saturday morning playing with the interactive map at the most transparent administration in history's Recovery.org website. As of Halloween, here are some of the regional breakdowns in terms of stimulus money awarded, received, and jobs saved (according to the recipients). Of course these figures of jobs saved are themselves bogus, but even on their own terms:

Region.....Awarded...Received...Jobs
======================================
D.C........$2.8b.....$209m......2,274
Idaho......$1.2b.....$246m......2,103
Texas......$10.7b....$1.8b......19,572



If you use trusty division, you find that the District of Columbia has "created or saved" jobs at a cost of $1.2 million per job (using the Awarded figure) or $92k using the Received figure.

Idaho takes the cake (at least of the states I checked) on the Received end, where each job created or saved cost $117k of stimulus awards actually received.

# posted by Bob Murphy @ 1:28 PM


Comments:
According to some, what you're doing is "calculator abuse", Bob.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/10/160000-per-stimulus-job-white-house-calls-that-calculator-abuse.html
# posted by Anonymous Matt : November 1, 2009 at 1:51 PM
 
Some public-choice economics of data reporting: Best to report as many jobds saved -- or created -- as you plausibly can. That's the way to get the money!
# posted by Anonymous Mario Rizzo : November 1, 2009 at 6:00 PM
 
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